Would you like it if your wife volunteered change her last name to yours?

Politics and religion
#1

Please note for obvious reasons, this vote excludes women from voting in it. Sorry gals.

This poll is anonymous.

The other thread got me thinking. Deep down, without being judged by your spouse/fiance or your friends or anyone around you . . . without pressure from your parents, or her parents, or anyone . . . would you like it if your wife volunteered to take your last name when you got married? This question is relevant if you are unmarried or married . . . you can think retroactively, or in the future to some theoretical time.

Please note the poll is phrased in a specific way. It’s not “Should your wife take your last name” or “Would you ask her to take your last name”. It’s as non confrontational as possible. She approaches you and asks either “I’d like to take your last name, what do you think?” or “Give me your honest opinion, would you like me to take your last name?” and you know it’s not some trick question, but a real, forthright question.

Also, please try to be honest. No one is judging you here, no one can see the results, and putting “I really don’t care” should be like being True Neutral in DnD. Pretty rare. Ideally if you chose this you honestly, completely don’t care at all, you don’t sway one way or the other, it has never entered your mind.

#2

I don’t think I care. I wouldn’t want her to take my last name if my last name was something like “Butz”, in which case I would be changing my last name.

#3

I’m getting married in a few months (barring unforeseen church/reception hall snafus), and my fiance and I had this discussion a few weeks ago. She used a hyphenated last name from her first marriage (until it was annulled by the church), but asked me what I’d prefer for ours.

I told her that I’d understand if she wanted to hyphenate for our marriage, but that I’d prefer to follow Filipino tradition, in that her maiden name becomes an additional (or replacement, in some cases) middle name, and she takes my last name. It preserves the presence of her maiden name, but doesn’t go as far as a hyphenated last name. She thought about it, and agreed, so that’s what we’re doing.

#4

She should probably decide that kind of thing before she becomes my wife, really. I’d think less of her foresight and ability to plan.

#5

I honestly don’t know why people care about this. Marged did a lot of hand-wringing about it, first wanting to keep her name, then wanting us each to change our names to either a strange amalgam of the two or something different entirely. I told her honestly that I couldn’t see myself changing my name, but that I didn’t expect her to either, if she didn’t want to… this is such a non-issue.

In the end, someone convinced her to change it to mine, but I forget why.

#6

I’d like it, but just because it would make paperwork easier and probably save questions. It’s not really an ego thing for me.

#7

I thought this was a fairly standard solution, and the one I believe makes the most sense. I think it makes sense for everybody in a family to have the same last name, simply for convenience in book-keeping, etc (same household = same last name), although I don’t care whose it is. My wife liked my last name better than hers, so she switched.

#8

In the end, someone convinced her to change it to mine, but I forget why.

Aesthetics. But I still go back and forth about it. And I don’t believe there was any resolution about what to do about kids names if I kept my name.

#9

Haha it doesn’t really make much sense for Polish people. Can you imagine a name like Agnieszka Katarzyna Lewandowska Wojnarowicz on your papers? :P

Yeah. Doesn’t really work :)

#10

Well, it’s not a non-issue for you, if you don’t want to change yours.

I don’t like hyphenated names and think it’s more convenient if everybody has the same nice. I think I could live with losing mine, but it was a non-issue for us since I have a last name shared by 113 other people in this country and my wife’s was shared by 250.000, so she didn’t even argue in favour of keeping hers.

#11

Changing your name seems like a big pain in the ass to me, so I wouldn’t expect anyone to do it on my behalf, since I’d be pretty resistant to doing it myself.

This is an interesting issue, though. I don’t have any insight into it, unfortunately. Does anyone who’s dealt with it have thoughts? What have you and extarbags discussed?

#12

I voted ‘Don’t Care’, and as I mentioned in the other thread I am living this one. My wife didn’t want to change her name, partly due to hassle and partly because that’s her name, damn it! And I fully understand and support the decision. I think that deep down she feels just a little bad about it, but she’s more traditional than I am (I am really not in the least concerned with traditions). She mentioned possibly going the hyphenating route, but I told her I didn’t really like that idea purely for aesthetic reasons – her last name is three syllables, mine two, it’s just cumbersome.

Anyway, if she spontaneously decided to change her name, I’d ask her if she was really sure that was the way she wanted to go and if so, I’d say go for it. I don’t believe that just because we are married she should have to jump through all these technical and legalistic hoops to reflect the marriage in her name.

#13

I would ask her to just for long-term convenience.

Even without overtly judging the situation, there is a split second of confusion about anything that is outside social norms. Since I don’t care to take a stand against that norm, I might as well save a bit of time and effort by going with the flow.

Someone mentioned his wife kept her name because they were lazy. So I guess I am in the middle range of efficiency here: willing to put in the up front effort to get it changed to save annoyance in future situations, but don’t care about helping out the future geneologists either. :)

#14

My wife and I have not dealt with this per se, as we have no kids. But we have discussed it, and I think we agree that children would have my name. Oddly, the idea of our kids not having my name kind of bothers me in a way that I can’t articulate. Maybe I’m more chauvinistic than I thought.

#15

I told my then-fiance that I didn’t care, which I honestly didn’t. But then she changed her name, and I got a weird surge of pride. So, yeah. Can’t really explain it, but there’s a Yes vote.

This is exactly why she decided not to hyphenate.

#16

Did you hear the one about the Polish woman who decided to hyphenate her name when she got married?

It was really long, and people had a hard time pronouncing it.

#17

Kind of a tricky question in my own case, as my last name is from a side of the family that I’m rather estranged from now. I don’t really care that much about the name, but it would make me wonder why she’d even want to take on a name that’s not even meaningful to me. Unless her own last name was something like Buttz…

#18

No. Sula is not my property and I don’t want to status mark her as such. ‘Mrs’ is a problem also, but it’s avoided entirely by Sula keeping her own name.

#19

It’d be a disaster; Betsy McCullough? That’s what you name a cow. Or maybe a founding father’s wife.

#20

My wife changing her name or not is a non-issue for me, and since this thread is about marriage and not the witness protection program, that’s what seems relevant.